Kufuor to avert prisons' strike

President Kufuor returns from his trip to France and Norway to meet a simmering tension within the Ghana Prisons Service, the Dispatch newspaper reports on its front-page.

According to the paper, a seven-page petition from the top hierarchy of the service against their Director-General, Richard Kuuire for “arbitrariness and capriciousness.”

The Dispatch published earlier that tension was mounting in the prisons service as a result of illegal transfer of 27 senior officers.

The petition to the president and signed by seven deputy directors of prisons states that after a normal Monday meeting, December 3, the Director General “sprung a surprise on his colleagues by having distributed a list of 27 superior officers, including seven deputy directors to proceed on transfer on a letter dated 30th November, 2001”.

It said contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana and Scheme of Service of the Prisons Service, the Director General has sent out appointment letters to two civilians and a retired brigadier of the Ghana Army as directors of prisons.

The petition explained that “the appointment to the rank of director of prisons is the sole prerogative of the President of the Republic, who by virtue of Art 207 (3) (of the Constitution) makes such appointment in accordance with the advise of the prisons service council and that the Constitutional provision cannot by any expediency be tramped upon even if the Council is not in place.”

It continued, “that in principle, members of the service do not and cannot object to the appointment of civilians as S.607 of the Scheme provides that “civilians may be engaged to do specific jobs and paid off when the assignment has been completed” but “members of he service however strenuously objected to their appointment as Director of Prisons as S.607 further stipulates that during the period they (civilians) execute the job, they shall not in anyway be termed prison officers.

The petitioners noted that the Director General was in a rush to make appointments ahead of the inauguration of the Prisons Service Council, to secure the illegality and prelude the Council from deliberating over them.

The seven DDPs alleged that the rank and file of the service are aware of the animosity the Director General has for most of them and that the transfers were clear manifestations of vindictiveness by the DG. “The desire to use transfer as punishment is manifested in the immediate posting of superior officers to non-existent positions, with non-existent office and staff accommodation, yet in the case of DDP Baffour-Awuah the transfer date of 10th January, is not punitive enough but it has to be brought forward to 10th December, 2001 to inflict maximum hardship, the petition said.